Mancunian Twine Poem by Paul Brookes

this river flows in bends
a ribband in the city like a streak of fustian grey
but hidden at times beneath our feet.

our history flows though its water,
without it there would be no town.
king cotton weaves in its banks and bed.
the weft and woof that used to be the beating heart.

she is an unruly mistress ruled by non,
sometimes treacherous, sometimes benign,
she carries our memories deep dyed in cotton mills.
scarlet in rambunctious red orange sunsets
or gunmetal grey in fluorescent dawns.

at times she is a sleepy guileless flow
but then she roars a turbulent tumbling torrent
ripping at banks, clawing the tree roots loose.
she has been my lullaby, always threading through my life;
calming my unquiet soul with her rippling music.

now the fish are returning to her once polluted waters
tempting back the herons to sit on her banks like old hunched men waiting to make a meal of unsuspecting tench or roach.

It is my river, it is our river, the cities river,
flowing here before us and will be there long after we have gone.

this river flows in bends
a ribband in the city like a streak of fustian grey
but hidden at times beneath our feet.